What’s it like to start at VMware during a Pandemic?
Yes, I’m now a VMware employee and going into my 4th week as a Solutions Engineer. Being someone who has been a strong advocate for the Digital Workspace and how important it is for employers to embrace technology to enable their workforce I had high expectations for VMware. I’ve been running workshops, demoing, and installing/configuring VMware solutions for many years now, especially in the end user compute space. It’s funny how one of my dreams these past few years was to actually experience the technology I sell and implement as an end user. Due to various reasons outside of my control my previous employers were not users of the technology we sold, sadly. That never stopped me from being an advocate for what I believed was the best end user platform, VMware Worksapce ONE. I can now say I’m a consumer of the technology and even more of a believer in the benefits of Workspace ONE.
Starting at VMware during a global pandemic presented some challenges, such as never meeting my manager or team in person prior to being hired. Weird feeling, but turned out to be a great experience just the same. One challenge that VMware faced was the lack of hardware availability due to the global pandemic. Thankfully they were well positioned to pivot to a remote workforce who can utilize any device, anywhere, to access any corporate applications.
Without my corporate issued laptop on Day 1 I was provided some basic login instructions for my VMware login to Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub. What became immediately clear was not having a laptop to make my own and save various resources such as links or applications was challenging. Thankfully you can create a favorite page on Workspace ONE. I was able to save the various web links and application shortcuts from my personal PC and then also view them on my personal iPad. I was surprised at how helpful a content catalog that contains not only applications, but web links was so helpful in starting out. Co-workers would share some of their favorite apps and tips on which ones are more helpful to have on your mobile device. It was great and made onboarding a lot easier. Being a big company and meeting lots of people very quickly meant it can be challenging to figure out who is who. To help with that I found myself constantly using the People search in Workspace ONE to see what team people were on and where they were located. It’s a simple feature, but People in WS1 is very quick and easy to use.
Since most applications are already SaaS this meant I didn’t have to install anything on my personal computer, although I chose to install a few on my iPad. For anything that did require an install or maybe just looks and feels better (Outlook/OneNote) I did have access to a Horizon backed virtual desktop. Between Workspace ONE and Horizon I was able to start working within an hour of starting at VMware, all without my corporate laptop. I’d like to add that this was all done without the need for a VPN. That’s big in my opinion. We shouldn’t be sending VPN access to every employee and especially not on their personal devices. That would introduce some scary risk. Thankfully Workspace ONE has some handy security features built in that allow for device validation and per-app VPN tunnels. These can ensure your device is not jailbroken and only open up approved apps within their own VPN like tunnels back to the appropriate backend resources. These features minimize risk in a big way.
In my experience many companies struggle with onboarding in the best of times so to experience first hand what VMware’s own technology can do for the user experience was a huge reinforcement on my career choices.
What was even better was when I finally received my corporate laptop. Having a laptop shipped directly to me that was not imaged or prepped in any custom way would be scary for most employers who manage devices in a classic model. With a modern management approach I was able to simply type in my domain credentials and my laptop was then recognized as a device that needs to be enrolled in Workspace ONE. As soon as I was logged in the magic of Workspace ONE policy was pushed down to ensure the hard drive was encrypted and security applications were then auto-installed. Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub was installed and then allows you to pick other native applications you want to install. Within an hour of opening my new laptop I was enrolled in Workspace ONE where my device can be managed by corporate IT and I had all the applications I needed to start working. I never had to contact IT and they never even touched the device, yet I’m meeting all the corporate security standards. So both IT and I saved a considerable amount of time and hassle. This experience only helped to bolster my positive opinion of VMware and makes me proud to be a part of the team.
As I take full advantage of the Digital Workspace at my new role I hope to share my experiences along the way here.
Thanks for reading.
Links for continued reading:
VMware Workspace ONE: https://www.vmware.com/products/workspace-one.html
VMware Tech Zone for Digital Workspace: https://techzone.vmware.com/
VMware Hands-on Labs: https://www.vmware.com/try-vmware/try-hands-on-labs.html